


Is Living With Regret Really Living At All

by collatorsden_archivist



Category: Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars & Related Fandoms, Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, F/M, M/M, R/NC-17 - Brown Cortina, Time Period: 1973-1981 (Life on Mars), Time Period: 1981-2006 (Life on Mars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-26
Updated: 2008-06-26
Packaged: 2019-01-20 17:17:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12437784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collatorsden_archivist/pseuds/collatorsden_archivist
Summary: Sam wakes up in 2006, looking for Gene. He finds him on telly late one night.





	Is Living With Regret Really Living At All

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Janni, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [the Collators' Den](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Collators%27_Den), which was moved to the AO3 to ensure access and longevity for the fanworks. I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the Collators' Den collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/collatorsden/profile).

On with the fic then?

 

 

 

Sam woke up in 2006, there in his sterile hospital room, with nurses and doctors and Morgan and almost immediately, almost as soon as he realized he was really awake, really alive, he looked for Gene. It didn't matter that he'd just had surgery, or just come out of a coma, or that hospital security in this day and age would have a man as demanding and in your face and bellowing all the time out on his arse faster than Gene could spout off insulting yet somehow endearing pet names for Sam. No, Gene would be there, would make sure of it. Sam looked around, as far as he could, confused and hurt as to why Gene wasn't there with him, why he couldn't hear him yelling at the nurses to let him in. Instead all he could hear was this Morgan person, this surgeon that he suddenly hated with a passion telling him that he was awake, he was going to be alright. Sam blinked, tears forming in eyes that had been open mere moments, confusion and hurt gripping him as he looked again around the room, this time surrounded by his mum, his Maya. 

 

 

They were crying, happy and he was happy to see them, yes of course he was but he couldn't stop the tears, or his eyes from darting around the room, searching the shadows. He closed his eyes, wanting to sleep, wanting to dream, if 1973 and his team, their team, and Gene....if it was all a dream then he wanted to sleep, now. He could go back, if it was just a dream, if it was truly just in his head. 

 

 

Shouting, he heard shouting and crying and there were gunshots and...What was he doing? Why was he walking away? He turned around and saw Gene fall to the ground, shouting at him, telling him to come back, and Annie, crying holding Chris or Ray, and oh God were they were bleeding and it was his fault, his fault and he started to walk towards them, started to run until he felt like he was free falling, limbs flailing and people screaming his name...

 

 

*****

 

 

He woke, bolted up in bed, a vice like grip of fear around his heart and the sound of his own scream echoing in the room, or maybe just in his head. He turned to look at the sleeping body next to him, gorgeous Maya, his Maya who stayed with Sam because she didn't know. How could she know when Sam didn't tell her? He'd heard her words, back in 1973, back in his other life, the life that seemed so much more real to him, so much brighter than this one. She wanted to leave, couldn't deal with the pain or the loneliness and Sam remembered thinking at the time that if he did wake up he would find Maya and hold her and caress her and kiss her until that fear and that loneliness dissipated, until she wanted nothing more or less than Sam, and yet here he was in their bed, awake for a month now, and he couldn't so much as touch her or talk to her, much less hold and kiss her. She'd tried, God how she'd tried, with her gentle words and her feather light touches and her encouragement, her sweeties and huns and loves and Sammy's...and that's when he'd lost it, screaming about not wanting or needing her gentle touch, he was a man dammit and he wanted to be treated and touched like a man, and how dare she call him Sammy, what was he some kind of girl? Some kind of Nancy boy? 

 

 

Sam got up out of the bed, sure that Maya was likely awake and not able to care. He headed out to the sofa, turned on the telly and found himself mindlessly flipping through entirely too many channels, almost wishing he could find the test card girl, instead ending up on some seventies buddy cop show. He stared absentmindedly at the screen, looking for signs of his 1973, of Gene, in much the same way he did back then, in that other life, when all he wanted was to come home. Home, he realized far too late, was where your heart was, and his heart, his mind and everything else that came with Sam was back there, in his true home, everything but his body.

 

 

He'd not really been watching the show, more staring at the screen, until he saw one guy, the older, not so fit, not so nice copper throw his skinny, wiry and mouthy subordinate against a sleek looking, polished car. He took notice, every nearly frayed nerve ending in his body stood at complete attention until Sam thought he actually saw Gene on the screen, in fact he was sure he turned and winked at him, winked at the screen and asked in his cockiest voice "Miss me Sammy boy?" as he looked like he was going to throw the other guy, wait was that Sam...Back against the car again or push him right into it but instead leaned in and captured the most absurd, bordering on lurid kiss Sam had ever seen. It was overly graphic, exaggerated in the most insane way, and in the midst of all that insanity Sam laughed, because wouldn't that just be all very Gene.

 

 

And he laughed as this version of Gene mauled that version of Sam, and he winced when the bile came up into his throat as he understood somewhere in the still sane part of his mind that this is what he wanted, what he'd always wanted. He bit back the bile, swallowed it down, bitter and hot as it slipped down his throat and mingled with the metallic taste of regret deep in his belly. 

 

 

He felt sick, vile as he choked out a cry of something like agony mixed with sweet ecstasy as his hand worked himself over, something he didn't realized he'd been doing until he was too caught up in it, too far gone to care anymore. He shouted Gene's name as he came, the pain not subsiding but spreading, seeping into his pores and taking over as Maya watched, silently from the other side of the room. Sam saw her there, felt her cold stare and her wave of disgust at what he had become, a poor, creepy shell of a man who needed to wank it in front of the telly in the middle of the night, fantasizing about people and events and things that don't exist, at least not in this world.

 

 

Maya moved out the next day. Sam said goodbye to his mother the day after that. And the next day, that was the one, he went back to 1973, went back to them all, but most importantly went back to Gene and back home where his heart waited. 

 

 

He had no regret as he fell from the sky, or as he approached Gene later on that very day, caressing the gunshot wound on his leg and leaning into him to whisper words he should have said then, capture lips he could hardly believe were real. They didn't taste of regret, they tasted of flesh and blood and whiskey and home. Sam was home and he was there to stay.


End file.
